"No," I said, turning away. He seized my wrist.
"You haven't gotten him to say anything important and you haven't found anything that would give you any clues."
"He wouldn't have put a lock on it if it wasn't very private," I said.
"You have a right to know about yourself. No one has a right to keep that under lock and key, do they? Well?" he pursued.
I thought a moment.
"You can put it back just the way it is?"
"Easily." He reached into his pocket and produced his Swiss Army pocket knife to show me the small screwdriver. "Okay?" he asked.
I looked at the lock again. Maybe there was nothing behind this door. Maybe it was just filled with some of his vases or statues, but Cary was right. I would always wonder.
"Okay," I said. He smiled and put the screwdriver to work. In minutes, just as he had predicted, the hasp came free of the wall and with it, the lock. He folded his knife and turned the handle.
"Ready?"
I took a deep breath and nodded. He opened the door. It was a deeper closet than I had anticipated. Apparently, no one had been in it for a long time. There were cobwebs across the doorway. C
ary cleared them out of our way and we stepped into the closet. We saw an easel on the right, a carton filled with brushes, and another carton filled with carving tools beside it. There was an artist's smock hanging from a hook on the wall above the cartons.
"Nothing unusual," I said, my voice tinged with disappointment.
"Isn't there a light in here?" Cary asked as he groped through the air for a pull chain. He found a string and pulled it to turn on a single, naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. The illumination washed away the shadows and revealed a pile of canvases under a white sheet. The sheet was caked with dust. Cary curiously lifted one edge and gazed under it, but I had been hoping we would find a box of letters from Mommy or a diary, something I could read to discover information.
"It just looks like some pictures of someone, but I can't tell anything. I'll hold this up. You pull one out," he instructed.
"We shouldn't, Cary. He's going to know."
"We'll just put it back the way we found it," he said. "Go on," he urged. "Aren't you curious?"
I was, but I was also afraid. Ulysses stood in the doorway behind us, watching, and to me it was as if he were wondering why I had betrayed his master.
"Let's just back out of here and put the hasp back in place, Cary."
"We're in here already; we might as well look at everything," he insisted and held the sheet up with one hand while he worked the first canvas off the top of the pile. As it came out, I stepped closer.
First, we saw a pair of legs and then, as more and more of the canvas was revealed, we saw it was a naked woman sprawled on a beach blanket. The picture was done in a most realistic style; it was practically a photograph. Cary got so excited, he dropped the sheet entirely and used both hands to lift the canvas and place it on the floor.
We both stared down, neither of us able to speak, for we both recognized the woman. She couldn't be mistaken. It was Mommy, and the picture was done when she was much younger, perhaps in her late teens.
"Wow," Cary said.
"Put it back, Cary," I urged, my throat quickly closing. Instead, he reached in and pulled out the next canvas. This, too, was of Mommy, only in this one, she was standing, completely naked, gazing at the ocean. It had been drawn and painted very precisely. I recalled the small birthmark just below her left hip.
Cary said nothing as he continued to look at the other paintings.
"They're all of her," he said. "Different poses, different places. Here's one on a boat. She could have been a Playboy centerfold."
"Put it all back!" I cried, tears burning my eyes. I turned away. Suddenly, the small room had become stifling and I couldn't breathe. I rushed out and threw myself onto the settee. Cary put everything back the way it was and shut off the closet light.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"No," I wailed. My tears were freely carving wet lines down my cheeks.
Cary hurried to replace the hasp on the door, and after he had tightened the last screw, he came to me. I raised my eyes and wiped the tears away, a pit of bitterness growing inside me.